Instruments for profiling surfaces are generally classified as either contact or noncontact types. With contact types, a stylus is used to mechanically move over the surface while in physical contact with it to build up information about surface features including their position and scale. Noncontact types are usually optically based and may be either scanning types or full-field types depending on whether or not a probe is moved over a surface in the manner of a stylus but not in contact with the surface or an area larger than that measured by a probe is imaged all at once.
Optical metrology of surface profiles can generally be divided into two regimes, namely interferometric and geometric. Geometric techniques include triangulation and moire fringe analysis, which involves the projection and imaging of a periodic structure such as a Ronchi ruling. Geometric techniques are relatively insensitive to surface roughness and deformations, but are of relatively low resolution thus making them unsuitable for many applications in which surface profiles must be measured with high precision.
Interferometry, on the other hand, relies on the wave nature of light for high precision measurement of the surface profile of a test object. A typical interferometer includes a light generator that produces a beam of light followed by a beam divider that splits the beam into reference and measurement beams. The reference beam is then reflected off a reference surface, and the measurement beam off the object whose surface is to be profiled. First and second reflected wavefronts from the reference and measurement surfaces are then recombined with one another while interfering both constructively and destructively to produce an interference fringe pattern at a detector, the fringe pattern being a function of the optical path difference between the paths traveled by the reference and measurement beams. The optical path difference results in differences in phase as a result of the differences in optical path traveled between the reference and measurement beams. An imaging device, such as a solid state camera, receives the recombined wavefronts and acquires images of the interference fringe pattern. The interference fringe pattern then is analyzed to obtain information about the surface profile of the test object.
Fringe pattern analysis for surface profilometry often is performed by the well-known technique of phase shifting interferometry (PSI). In PSI, the height difference between locations on a surface imaged by first and second pixels on the imaging device is determined by first determining a phase difference between light received at the first and second pixels and by then using the phase difference to calculate a height difference. A primary advantage of PSI is that it is highly precise. The vertical height precision for PSI is a fraction (e.g., 1/100) of the optical wavelength of the light source used to conduct the measurement. A second advantage of PSI is that it has good vibration immunity characteristics because phase data is acquired for all pixels simultaneously and because the data acquisition time is relatively short.
Generally speaking, however, conventional PSI approaches can profile only smooth surfaces having relatively small height variations or “surface departures” between adjacent measurement sites (the maximum height deviation that can be accommodated is +/− one quarter wavelength) since conventional interferometry on a surface with high slopes generates such a high fringe density that no meaningful information can be derived from the fringe pattern. Therefore, while PSI interferometry is much more precise than geometric optical profilometry, it historically has been considered to be ill-suited for use with rough objects or objects having marked surface deformations.
One interferometric technique that lacks the quarter-wavelength constraint of PSI is the so-called scanning white light interferometry or SWLI. In SWLI, a white light illumination source or, more generally, one which is of a broad-band spectrum as opposed to being of a narrow-band spectrum (e.g., a laser), generates an interference pattern which contains, as a function of scan position, regions of high contrast for each location on the test surface. The scan position of high contrast for a given pixel indicates the height of the corresponding location on the test surface. Therefore, by comparing the temporal characteristics of these regions of high contrast with one another, a difference in height between two locations on the profiled surface can be determined. Unlike PSI, SWLI does not calculate height differences based on phase differences, and the PSI phase constraint therefore does not apply to SWLI. The maximum physical departure between adjacent measurement sites on a profiled surface therefore may be much larger with SWLI than with PSI.
In some embodiments, SWLI can be refined using phase measurement techniques to provide the same resolution as PSI while being able to measure discontinuous surfaces.
Examples of manufactured items requiring metrology include engine parts, components for magnetic storage devices, flat-panel displays, molded and textured plastic surfaces, mechanical pump surfaces and seals, and minted coins. In these and other Industrial Markets, there is a significant and growing need for fast, accurate metrology of parts having non-flat prismatic surfaces.